Some photos for your viewing pleasure

Meet Shangazi, one of our beloved cooks. Shangazi, which means “Auntie” on the paternal side, is a beautiful soul. You can clearly see this as she prepares some of the food in the kitchen*. Every morning, Shangazi greets Ellen and me with a heartfelt smile, hug, hand shake and a few rounds Welcome/Karibu. This followed by more smiles, laughs, hugs and then thanks from all parties. When we feel overwhelmed, we normally go spend some time with Shangazi and all is well! *We have a structure just behind this outdoor kitchen that will eventually be our real kitchen…we just need to put a roof on the structure, cement the floor and install windows and doors. This is one of our big 2010 projects. It’ll be about $6,000.00 to complete the kitchen as well as the dining room structure just next to it. I heart Shangazi!

–>Here is the kitchen and dining room to be (I stood in the dining room to take this photo. Through the doorway you can see part of the outdoor kitchen we currently use. On the right is a large window through which we’ll serve the food from the kitchen to dining room.

Meet Jackson. For dedicated readers, this is one of the little boys who enjoys “takataka” so much! While I used to approach him constantly with hand out, demanding the random item from his mouth, he now comes to me (sometimes running) announcing his takataka with a huge smile. He happily hands it over. Baby steps/polepole! A little more about this little darling: he LOVES our dance nights out on the veranda. His smile is literally ear to ear as he gets down with his bad self. He also has a huge fondness for books…mostly just sifting through them for the pictures, but what kid doesn’t love that? I still do that too!

Meet some of our boys who attend the local government school. Needless to say, this pose is one of their favorites. L-R: Shedrack, Wilium, Josephat, and Ezekial. Thanks to Journeys of Solutions volunteers, Susan and Barbara, who were here in September, we purchased a second set of uniforms for the 26 school-aged children. Susan’s church contributed the funds to purchase the much needed second set. : )

This little love is Clement…at just two years old, he’s the youngest bachelor we have at Shalom. Watch out ladies!